Mitigation
by miafarrowinraybans
Summary: Metamorphmagus Crystal Potter has always been the Gryffindor. She didn't have much choice. Not as a role model to the entire wizarding world, with a brother that needed constant watching, and unimaginable stress put on her shoulders. Bill Weasley is her only escape, so what happens when he's suddenly deployed, leaving her to raise their 4 y/o? (Really, K - just some kissing)
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note: *sorry, I really like my Author's Notes ;) * Do you like it? Don't like it? I think I'll turn this into a bunch of semi-short drabbles if you do. If I get a much larger amount of support than I expected -that will not happen, I know- I'll turn this into a full length story with, you know, _plot_.**

_**Disclaimer: Everything except for Crystal Potter belongs to J.K. Rowling.**_

**May 7****th****, 1990 (Crystal and Bill are both about 20)**

"'m not sure what you want me to say, to be perfectly honest," Crystal said finally. Bill groaned and threw his hands in the air. "Well, what do you want me to do? They're orders from the Minister himself, Crys, bloody hell!"

She glared at him over her knees, her feet propped against the edge of the coffee table. "Since when did I say I wanted you to refuse? Of course you have to."

"I would appreciate a little bit of support," he shouted at her, kicking at the leg of the chair. It nearly toppled over. "Oh, I'm sorry! Am I supposed to be the dutiful little girlfriend and come crawling to your side pathetically?" She yelled back just as loudly.

They paused. "Forget it," she muttered, standing up and grabbing her bag from the hook by the door, not even bothering to slam it behind her as she stomped out. "Well, what's gotten you two into such a tizzy?" Mrs. Wells from next door called from down the hall as he made to close it.

"Just got a message of deployment," he explained, holding up the yellow paper he was starting to consider burning for all the trouble it'd caused him. "Ah, I suspected as much," she said with a small smile. "Why, when my Winston was sent off to Vietnam, I just about bit his head off," she recalled, a dreamy look on her face as she chuckled.

"Why?" Bill asked curiously, leaning against the doorframe. Mrs. Wells gave him an odd look.

"Why? Weasley, it's only the hardest thing anyone has to go through; not just for the person getting sent away, but for their family as well. Your girl there feels like she's sending you to the executioner's block, but she can't do a thing about it. Looks like you have some thinking to do," she said, seeing the look on his face.

The doorbell rang later that night, just as Bill was zipping his jacket to head to Crystal's flat a few blocks away. Opening it, he saw that he didn't need his jacket anymore. "Oh, God, I'm such an idiot," she moaned into his shoulder, his arms wrapped tightly around her middle.

"No, you're not," he said quietly into her hair. "Smartest girl I've ever met."

"When do you leave?" She whispered. "July. 5th, I think."

"We'll be fine," she assured him, probably to comfort herself more than anything. "We'll be fine," he repeated, holding her close to him.


	2. Chapter 2

**Authors Note- Thank you, thank you, thank you for the lovely reviews (padfootette and the-sparkly-scribblings, I think). I squeal with joy whenever I think about your kind words and constructive criticism, which I am definitely taking into account! I lost all faith in this story, but decided to check on it tonight and was shocked to see that someone thought I had a smidgen of potential! *gasp* I will point out, however, that my life is just absolutely chaotic right now, so updates will be few and far apart. Sorry! A real life plot version will also have to wait :P**

**September 1****st****, 1994**

There was a long dismal corridor, badly lit, a locked wooden door at its end. _It's always the same, the same damn door_, she thought bitterly. She'd never gotten close enough to even try opening it, but somehow in her mind she knew that she wouldn't be able to.

A loud noise to her left made her jump and look that direction. _Here comes the snake._ It'd been that way for years. The green scaly beast would come and tear her to pieces. She wasn't scared; rather, she felt quite bored. But the yellow eyes only glinted at her murderously as it _passed_.

Perpetually forced to crawl on the mud left by others' bare feet, the snake slithered _past_, obviously resisting the urge to snap at her ankle. She watched it move to another hallway branching off of the one she was in curiously, one that hadn't been there before, she knew.

Cautiously following, she listened with a wonderful kind of alertness that could only come from years of being watched. A figure lay at the end of this new room, sitting on the floor. Whoever it was, they were obviously asleep, their head tilted to one side precariously.

She wanted to yell out, scream or call for the person to wake and run. _The snake!_ her mind screamed at her. But she was paralyzed now as she saw it take its first bite out of the man's flesh. The blood. The red gushing blood. It spattered all over the tile floor and stained the attacker itself.

With every snap of its jaws, the gleaming fangs took away more of the man's life. She finally got a glimpse of the man's face when… _Arthur._

"Cry!" Crystal Potter sat up in bed with a shuddering gasp, Bill Weasley standing over her, his strong arms around her. She buried her face in her hands and breathed heavily, vaguely realizing that the lightning-bolt scar on her forehead was bleeding, a narrow trail of blood trickling down one side of her face.

"Christ," she sighed, resting her chin in her palm, brushing away the raven hair in her eyes. "Same one?" Bill asked softly, pressing against the scar with his finger to slow the bleeding. She paused, then shook her head, ignoring the throbbing of her temples. "It wasn't… it was sort of the same, I guess. Started the same." She sighed and rubbed at her eyes wearily.

"What time is it?" She asked her husband. "Um… about five thirty. Maybe a little later." She swung her legs over the edge of the bed and stood, bending to pick up the jeans she'd left on the floor the night before.

They got dressed at the same time, throwing the other their clothing as needed. "You got your trunk packed?" Bill asked Crystal as they sat at their kitchen counter over steaming mugs of tea. "Mm-hmm," she said distractedly, turning to find the morning owl tap-tap-tapping at the window.

She slid the latch open and let the tawny bird in, taking a few Knuts from the bowl on the table and securing them in the leather pouch on its leg. It dropped the newspaper from its talons, taking flight once more and disappearing out the window.

"Tell me about the dream." Crystal looked at him. "You know good and well I'd really rather not." His red ponytail took on a darker tint, then turned brown, eventually fading until it was as black as hers. "And you know good and well I won't take no for an answer."

She sighed. Was that the third sigh of the morning? She could always measure how good the day would end up by how many times she sighed. Alas, today would obviously not be the best. Crystal made her hair do the opposite of his, becoming brown, than auburn and finally the color of hot kindle.

"I told you- same one, different ending. The snake didn't attack me." Bill coughed and looked over at her. "It didn't attack you?" He asked incredulously. She nodded. "Crys… that snake's been attacking you since we were eleven. Why'd it stop _now_?"

"Don't you think I'd tell you if I knew? It did attack someone," she added thoughtfully. "Who then?" He said.

"…"

"Oh, just tell me."

"Your dad."

Bill frowned at her. "My _dad_? As in, Arthur?" She nodded, resting her head on her forearms leaning against the cool granite countertop. He paused. "No point worrying about it now, I suppose," he changed the subject cheerfully, picking up their now too-cold-to-bother-with mugs and placing them in the sink.

"I'll get Chloe ready, hm? You can head over; I'll bring her in a few minutes" He said, dropping a kiss on the back of her neck before heading upstairs again. She smiled slightly and stood up as well, pulling her long hair into a plait with the band she always kept on her wrist (she felt oddly vulnerable when she forgot it), and picking up a pinch of Floo Powder to throw in the fireplace.

She closed her eyes and resisted the urge to cough as the world spun around her, soot attempting to crawl underneath her eyelids. When all was still, she climbed out of the new fireplace, this one covered in grime, though a bit bigger than the one she'd started in.

Crystal heard a few creaks and soft humming coming from the kitchen adjacent to the Weasley parlor. Making her way in there, she was practically attacked by a rather short, plump woman with red hair and a motherly face. "Hi, Molly," she grinned, hugging her back.

"Oh, how we're going to miss you all! Why, with you and Chloe going off to Scotland with the kids, Charlie setting off for Romania, and Bill getting deployed to Egypt again, I'm going to have an empty nest again!"

"Always an owl away, Molly," Crystal comforted with a tight smile, patting her shoulder. Her mother-in-law smiled back. "I do hope Fred and George stay out of trouble this year- I got forty-seven owls last year! I wonder if you and Bill weren't the best influences while you were in school," she said with twitching lips.

Crystal ducked out the room, calling behind her, "I'll wake 'em up, yeah?"

"'Mione," Crystal said softly, shaking the girl's shoulder. "'Mione, it's time to get up." Hermione Granger sat up and groaned, squinting even in the darkness of a September morning. The only source of light was the small flame flickering in her palm.

"Gin," she said, now placing her hand on the other girl's back. "Ginny, it's September 1st. You two need to get ready." The redhead sat up in bed as well and almost instantly laid back down, pulling the covers over her head. Crystal pulled them off.

"Don't go back to sleep! We need to get to the platform on time, you know," she said with a grin before shutting the door behind her and making her way up to the boys' room.

Two of them were lying in sleeping bags on the floor, the other two in beds next to them. Deciding to be a bit crueler than she was with the girls, she smirked and blew out the flame, leaving her in complete darkness before flipping the light switch next to her.

"AH!" Ron sat up with his hands over his eyes. "Bloody hell, Crystal!" The others boys groaned and got up in a similar fashion.

"Now, Ronnie-kins-" George started.

"-we really think-"

"-you ought to be-"

"-a bit nicer to our dear sister-in-law," Fred finished, grinning as he shrugged the blanket off himself.

"I'm pretty sure I'll be blind for a while, Crys," Harry whined. She rolled her eyes. "Well, _I'm_ pretty sure you'll survive. Besides, being blind isn't _that_ bad. I would know wouldn't I? You'll all be downstairs in fifteen minutes," Crystal told them sternly. "We can't be late again this year."

When she came back to the kitchen, Bill and Chloe were waiting for her at the table. "Mummy!" Her daughter cried. Crystal laughed and picked her up, twirling her around and making both of their hair fly behind them.

"Morning, sweetheart," she said quietly, kissing her forehead and setting her back down on the bench to finish her breakfast. "Molly's out in the shed," Bill said, rising from his seat with a smirk. Crystal narrowed her eyes, stifling a shriek when he suddenly grabbed her waist and spun her around.

"Shhh! The kids are upstairs," she said, still laughing. "Well, then we'd better be quiet then, hadn't we?" He said in a hushed voice. Crystal glanced over at her completely oblivious daughter still eating her toast sleepily, then back to her husband. They ducked into the pantry.

Bill kissed her neck and ear, his hand "hopelessly tangled" in her hair as she wrapped her slender arms around him. His hand groped at the collar of her shirt, but she swatted his hand away.

"Not the time nor the place," she chastised him with a sly grin.

"How long do we have, you think?" She whispered with a giggle. "Oh, long enough," he assured her with another kiss to her nose. His hands shifted down further and further until-

Heavy footsteps on the stairs above them signaled the arrival of the teenagers. Bill and Crystal jumped apart, both pretending to be looking for something nonchalantly as the kids came in.

"What are you looking for?" Ron asked curiously.

"Sugar," Crystal said at the same time that Bill replied, "Margarine."

They were met with strange looks and Crystal tried to keep her face from reddening while she put some dirty dishes in the sink and Bill wiped at Chloe's face with a napkin, though she hadn't spilled anything. "Everyone's ready, then?" Molly said, appearing out of nowhere as usual, clapping her hands happily.

"I'll miss you," Bill sighed as he and his wife passed through the magical barrier between 9 and 10, many teenagers and their parents already filled up the small platform next to the scarlet engine. Arthur and Molly were far behind them with the children, having urged them to go ahead while they glanced at each other amusedly. "I'll miss you, too," Crystal said with a bittersweet smile, their hands intertwined between them.

"Write me, won't you?" He begged her. She nodded. "_Obviously_. And there's still Hogsmeade weekends if your superior will let you go."

"Hm, not the same, though. Until Christmas," he said, pulling her hand up to touch his lips to it gently. Crystal grinned and nodded, shifting the strap of her bag on her shoulder, her other hand tightly grasping Chloe's. "Oi, you," Bill said, scooping her up with a smile. "You have to write me, too, 'kay?" She laughed and nodded vigorously.

"Be good for your mum, Chlo," he instructed mock-sternly, planting a kiss on her head and handing her back to Crystal. Harry, Hermione, and the Weasley's appeared through the barrier. "Guess this is it, then?" He asked as steam billowed out of the train next to them.

"Mm-hmm. You'll get my owl in the morning," she promised, kissing his cheek fondly. With a final sad smile, she turned and helped her daughter up the steps and into the engine. They disappeared from view. Bill sighed and prepared himself for the strenuous job that was Apparating to Egypt.


End file.
